Ian Watkins’ stepfather says family are ‘utterly devastated’

Ian Watkins’ stepfather has said that he hopes the former Lostprophets frontman can be rehabilitated during his jail sentence on child sex charges.

Watkins was sentenced yesterday (December 18) in Cardiff Crown Court and was given a 29-year jail sentence, as well as an extended licence for six years after pleading guilty to 13 sexual offences.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Watkins’ stepfather John Davies, a baptist minister, admitted he was angry at his family member, saying: “I could cheerfully spend an hour knocking him around a cell. There are things I may well want to say to him. These offences are so horrific. They are the most heinous crimes. Every one of us is completely and utterly devastated.”

Explaining why he and his wife, Watkins’ mother, did not attend court for the sentencing. “We chose not to come to court. It is far too distressing for Elaine and for me. Ian had a very strong relationship with his mother. It is a very deep bond. My heart aches for any individual who has been drawn into this and been affected by it. And only time will tell who those victims are.”

Discussing his hopes for Watkins’ future, Davies went on to say: “The police said he wouldn’t think twice about hanging you or anyone else out to dry, why are you bothering, why would you want to stand by him? I said, ‘Because he is my stepson. Because it gives me an opportunity to seek some healing in a very broken family’.”

During sentencing, Judge Justice Royce said that Watkins posed a “significant risk” to women and children and that he and the co-defendants had plumbed “new depths of depravity” and that the case was so extreme it “breaks new ground”. He told them: “Any decent person looking at or listening to material here would experience shock, revulsion, anger and incredulity.” Read the full story from the trial here.

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